


All The King's Horses And All The King's Men

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Tareth - Freeform, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12595648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: "To put it simply, Beth Greene was harsh, blunt, and broken.Not even all the glue in the world could put her back together.But Tara still wanted to try."Beth survives the gunshot, but not all of her does. And Tara is the only one who seems to notice.





	All The King's Horses And All The King's Men

**Author's Note:**

> blame [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1j2LoW3P14) for inspiring me to write this
> 
> don't forget to review!!

Beth reminded Tara of a newly sharpened blade. She was quick. Razor-edged. Lethal. And lovely. Unbelievably lovely. Watching her was like seeing silver forged, hot sparks and starlight erupting with every turn of her head. But her hair was like gold. Boiling, glowing, molten gold.

She was spellbinding.

And terrifying.

They first met in the fields of battle, with Alexandria and all its allying factions fighting back against Negan and his Saviors. Her and Rosita were in a predicament, mere moments from death, and then she was there. Fierce and fast, slicing the throat of the Savior whose gun was aimed at their heads, his blood spraying onto her like a shower of rubies.

Tara remembered looking at her, with her cheeks and hair dark red, and she couldn’t think of anything more frightening.

Or beautiful.

But she was supposed to be _dead_.

The last time anyone had seen her had been in the heart of Atlanta, hanging lifeless like a ragdoll from Daryl’s arms as he carried her out of the hospital doors. Tara had never forgotten that moment. The way everyone screamed and cried. She would always remember the way Maggie scrambled to her feet and reached for her sister, whose eyelids were closed and splattered with the blood from her cranium.

It had felt like a nightmare.

And now, here she was, a machete in her hand and her whole front covered in blood. There was always so much blood on her. It was almost a second skin. A coat of armour. And the burning ferocity in her eyes of steel made it virtually impossible for Tara to envision the sweet singing farmgirl the others had told her about.

Weeks later, after all the tearful hugs and reunions, Tara couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.

She remembered the one time Daryl had spoken about her.

He never spoke about her, not even to Maggie.

Tara supposed it was because it hurt too much.

They’d been close, he and Beth. They’d escaped the prison together after the attack, and lived out in the wilderness with only each other for who knew how long. She thought he must have blamed himself for what happened to her, and it was only when she caught him fiddling with that knife he kept at his belt one night that he finally spoke about her.

That knife was too small to be his. Too delicate-looking . . .

Too clean.

“Who was she?” she asked, and his eyes swamped with that distant sadness she sometimes saw.

“. . . Her name was Beth,” he answered finally, “She was Maggie’s sister.”

Tara knew that much already, but she didn’t interrupt him to say so.

“She was only eighteen when she died. Eighteen years old, and she raised Judith all by herself. She used to tell these stories, and sing these songs, like the world hadn’t gone an’ ended. She was brave, and she had this smile which made you feel brave too . . . I think she might’ve been the one good thing left . . . And I couldn’t save her.”

But in the end, she hadn’t needed saving.

She’d clambered out of the hole she’d fallen into, badly beaten and bruised, and saved herself.

She was amazing.

But there were monsters hiding underneath her skin. Creatures which were dark and deadly. Sometimes Tara caught glimpses of them, baring their fangs and flexing their claws under the guise of a pretty girl with golden hair. Tara hadn’t known her before the damage was done, but she still knew that something had changed permanently inside her. Even when she tried to hide it with those sweet smiles and forced little giggles.

It was a sadness she carried.

A lingering cloud of quiet misery.

There were no words to describe a pain like that, and even with all that Tara herself had suffered, she knew she could never hold a candle to what Beth had.

“What did it feel like?” she asked her one day, and Beth’s eyes had clouded over and a muscle in her jaw tightened. “When it happened . . . How did it feel?”

_What did it feel like to lose everything you were?_

The demons danced in her expression and she tightened her fists once, then loosened them again. Tara regretted asking, and the response very nearly broke her fractured heart.

“It felt like dying.”

Everything she was had been obliterated when the bullet touched her skull. Thoughts, feelings, memories, all gone with a touch of flying metal. She didn’t sing now, and she didn’t tell stories. She hardly even looked at Judith, and every time Maggie touched her, she flinched. It was hardly obvious, but Tara still noticed. Any trace of warmth had been completely drained, and what was left was this cold, mournful thing.

To put it simply, Beth Greene was harsh, blunt, and broken.

Not even all the glue in the world could put her back together.

But Tara still wanted to try.

After saving her life on that battleground, they fell into a sort of wordless friendship. There was little laughter or warmth in it, admittedly, but sometimes Tara thought she saw something, swimming away deep in Beth’s silver eyes.

Something that had been buried, and needed to be brought back to life.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked once as she sat in the bathtub, and Tara carefully poured a cup of water over her shampooed hair.

It was barely a whisper.

“Why do you care?”

Tara thought of Rick’s words that day and smiled.

“Because you’re not too far gone.”

Sadness could be a weapon. Something that had been broken became made up of sharp edges, and those edges could cut. She might have lost a handful of her cheeriest memories, and the easy happiness she once had, but she wasn’t entirely lifeless. She wasn’t all cold. There was still a fire inside of her. Still a steady burning flame.

And that fire was _rage_.

“Fight,” Tara urged as they practiced hand-to-hand combat with one another, “C’mon, hit me!”

Beth’s punch was feeble. She wasn’t really trying. She hardly ever tried unless her life or someone else’s she cared about was in danger.

When that happened, she was all brutality and adrenaline.

“ _Really_ hit me!” she spurred her on, lifting her fists in defense, “Imagine I’m your boyfriend and you just caught me cheating in the girls’ locker room after practice.”

“What the he—?” Beth blurted, but was cut short by Tara taking a swing at her. She missed, and Beth stared at her, eyes calculating her movements like a lioness stalking its prey.

That was good.

She was trying.

She was responding, which had been Tara’s goal all along.

She teased and taunted until finally Beth lunged forward, and sent them both crashing down onto the dusty earth. They landed together in a tangle of limbs, and Tara couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that tore from her throat.

Slightly jarred at first, Beth stared down at her with her big eyes and blinked. It only made Tara laugh harder, and she thought she saw Beth’s features soften, if only for a moment. Light twinkled in her eyes and her mouth curved into a faint, crooked smile. It was a face Tara had never seen her wear before, and it sent warmth shooting through her chest.

But it was gone in a matter of seconds and she quickly moved to crawl off her.

Tara sat up and looked at her, wanting to wipe away the sadness from her and bring back the girl they’d all loved so fiercely.

Beth wanted that too. She was tired of feeling that way, Tara could tell, but everything that had been so easy for her before was now so hard. A sense of hopelessness hit her and she balled her fists on her knees. But she couldn’t give up. Not now.

She _couldn’t_.

“What’s your name?” she asked, pushing for the most basic and fundamental of memories. She did it often, hoping to awaken some of the larger ones which sometimes resurfaced and then ran away again. The ones that had half-faded and were almost truly forgotten.

Beth’s lips twisted bitterly.

“Bethany Ann Greene,” she said.

Tara smiled, “Good. When were you born?”

“August 1994.”

“And what are some of the names of your family?”

Her eyes glazed over and she bit her lip. That was the one thing Tara felt cruel for making her remember. The faces of the dead that would never come back.

But she had to remember. She had to remember them always.

She couldn’t forget.

“Maggie,” she whispered, “Hershel, Shawn, Annette . . .”

Satisfied, Tara gently placed a hand on her shoulder and then squeezed. Tears were building in Beth’s eyes and they wobbled clumsily, about to fall. One slipped out and slid down her scarred cheek, and Tara leaned her head against Beth’s. She wrapped her arms around her limbs and felt the sheer juxtaposition of them. Fragile, but strong. Frail, but hard like steel. Her skin had hardened with every horrible thing she’d endured, and so had her heart.

“I’m trying,” she whispered, shaking slightly, “I’m trying, _all_ the _time_. But nothing ever changes. It never comes _back_. It never comes back. It doesn’t.”

Tara knew she wasn’t talking about the memories.

“You’re not dead,” she said.

Beth’s eyes flickered up to hers and more tears tumbled down her cheeks.

They were the tears of a child.

Of a girl left behind in the dust.

They reminded Tara of Meghan, and her heart constricted tightly in her chest.

“You’re not,” she said again, hands coming up to cup her sticky cheeks, “You’re not . . . ‘Cause you’re here with me. You’re with me. We’re both still here. We’re not dead, we’re not . . .”

Teardrops rolled down onto her thumbs and Beth bit her bottom lip, suppressing a whine. Tara’s eyes darted back and forth between her eyes, noticing for the first time the ring of golden green around both her pupils, before they suddenly closed and Beth leaned forward to press her forehead against hers.

Her skin was warm and Tara closed her eyes as well, wiping her tears away with her thumbs and feeling the bumpy risen line on her cheek.

“What’s your favourite colour?” she asked, their eyes still closed and foreheads pressed together.

She felt her cheeks lift with her smile, before she answered, “Gold.”

Tara smiled as well.

“What’s yours?”

“Blue.”

She opened her eyes slowly and found Beth’s already open, looking at her. Her tears had stopped, it seemed, and the smile on her face was overwhelmingly gentle. “Why?” she asked, and Tara’s brows creased slightly in thought.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “I guess it just always made me feel calm. And there are so many different shades. Dark blue, light blue, the colour of the sea . . . So that’s pretty cool. And there’s also the fact that blue Gatorade tastes fucking great.”

Beth breathed a soft laugh and her gaze shifted down for a moment.

“Why’s gold your favourite?”

When she looked back up, Tara could have sworn her eyes were the colour of a summer sky.

Grey was now blue, like someone had enhanced the vibrance behind her eyelids and turned the steel into sapphires. It made her breath catch in her throat and Beth’s smile widened.

“Because . . . ,” she whispered quietly, “. . . It’s bright. It chases the dark away. And the cold. And the rain . . . It reminds me of the sun. And it’s always warm when the sun is out . . . It’s not always sunny, but a colour is always the same. No matter what.”

Tara’s eyes were wide, her thoughts stormed like a castle by those words, playing over and over again in her head.

Beth was still smiling.

For a second, the monsters stopped moving underneath her skin, and her eyes glittered with laughter and glee. Tara didn’t know if she was staring at a ghost. The ghost of a girl the others liked to talk about.

_A colour is always the same._

She didn’t know how long they sat together like that, but she did know that Beth’s face was warm, and her smile made her stomach feel like it was full of butterflies. Their wings tickled her insides and sent giddiness rushing through her system as they danced, and she wondered if Beth could feel them too.

She hoped she did.

She wanted her to feel that same warmth she felt.

“We’re not too far gone . . .” she whispered.

_It reminds me of the sun._

“. . . We get to come _back_.”

_It’s always warm when the sun comes out._

With their eyes still closed, they didn’t see the grey clouds up above them parting, to reveal gathering golden light.


End file.
